No matter what size your organization is, it must move faster. Supply chain and IP advantages are fleeting and costly; organizations are realizing that continuous software innovation is critical in terms of building and preserving competitive advantage.

Companies are trying to figure out how to leverage their developers to make this happen. OpenStack is the infrastructure platform more and more of these companies are choosing to give their developers the tools they need to bring agility to a completely new paradigm of software development.

Keynoting About It

I’m going to talk more about OpenStack’s role in the software-defined economy at OpenStack Silicon Valley, a community event taking place at the Computer History Museum on September 16. Specifically, I’ll look at the role that infrastructure agility plays in the software-defined economy. You can register here, and if you’re attending VMworld, Oracle OpenWorld or the Paris Summit, you can get in free.

Software supported by agile infrastructure makes rapid innovation a reality, and the OpenStack community is making agile infrastructure a reality for a growing number of companies. The stakes are high: Richard Foster conducted an analysis in which he says, among other things:

On average, an S&P 500 company is being replaced about once every two weeks, either because of market cap decline or acquisition.

The churn rate of companies has been accelerating over time.

Corporations in the S&P 500 in 1958 lasted in the index for 61 years, on average.

By 1980, the average tenure had shrunk to about 25 years. Today, it stands at just 18 years based on seven year rolling averages.

But here’s the punch line:

At the current churn rate, 75% of the S&P 500 will be replaced by 2027.

This lies at the heart of why every company either is a technology company or is becoming one. Users of OpenStack are putting software at the center of their strategies to do just that.

Join me at OpenStack Silicon Valley to talk about how we position the project for continued success as the infrastructure of choice to drive the software-defined economy.